Perspectives on the beautiful game of soccer; fueled by enormous amounts of coffee

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Email on LD

I don't think my article on Landon was advocating a move to Bayern Munich, but I can see where some have taken it that way.

Here's what one reader had to say:

With all due respect I don't think Landon Donovan would even make the Bayern Munich matchday party more than 12 or 15 times in a season. They simply have too much talent going forward already in their squad (Podolski, Klose, Toni in attack not to mention Bastian Schweinsteiger and Franck Ribéry pulling strings in the final third) for Donovan to be anything more than a bit-part squad member. At this stage of his career he should be looking to play week-in and week-out. 19 goals in the American league is to the minds of 95% of the football world the equivalent of maybe 5 or 6 in England, Italy or Spain - in fact he could get 50 goals and prove very little - to be considered one of the best players in the world you are required to test yourself against the best defenders and defensive units on a regular basis - only three leagues in the world genuinely offer him this opportunity and their would certainly be interest, but he needs to take a reality check on his options. He should realise that taking a lower third Premiership or Liga or Serie A side to mid-table safety offers far more scope for the growth of his brand, development and even global respect quotient than warming the bench (or stands) of a European superpower like Bayern.

12 comments:

I love the "experts" telling Landon what he should and shouldn't do and that he needs to take a reality check. I'll be an expert here and tell Landon something: Don't ever let anyone tell you that you're not good enough or that you can't do something. Don't ever let that stop you.

No. 1 - the fact of the matter is that Bayern came calling. And if they come back, he'd be insane to turn it down.

No. 3 - even if he doesn't get much playing time, even if he's a rotational player or super sub, as long as he stays and makes good use of his minutes, other teams from Europe will come calling. They'll see he's committed to a European career and he's definitely quality enough to land somewhere. He could parlay a "cup of tea" with Bayern Munich into a nice paycheck from some other team in the EPL or La Liga, where he could get along quite nicely.

Toni has looked pretty anonymous for Bayern lately, stretching back to last season. Podolski can't seem to perform for the club like he can for Germany. Ribery isn't horribly injury-prone, but he's not amazingly solid either.

I don't doubt Landon has the quality. Most people don't realize how talented he actually is. It's just a mental thing with him. I agree with Karma: he was offered an opportunity at Bayern. He'd be a fool not to take the chance, even if he has to move to a different club in 6 months.

wondering here... is the blog DEAD now? will you guys address your readers on this? should we expect sporadic posts from now on? should we be removing you from our bookmarks? inquiring minds need to know.

As I recollect, the last time the blog went silent, Andrea wrote that silence on the blog is usually a sign that she and Luis are busier than usual at their paid gigs. So I'm hoping that we'll soon get a bunch of links to new articles by them.

I've said before, the blog ebbs and flows, but it's not always that we're busy with paying soccer gigs, but other stuff instead. If you follow the blog, you know that I also teach. This past week I was really sick with the flu. While that normally means I curl up with my laptop and post a lot until I feel better, this time I was focusing my bleary eyes on papers that needed grading. Please remove us from your bookmarks if you don't have the patience to understand that we don't get paid for posting and other things do come up. But I would never go silent or shut down on this blog without announcing it first. I'm not trying to build any suspense. I'm just busy with other stuff more these days.